Better Lucky Than Dead
by kaykuls24
Summary: Post Revelation, but no Bill i.e. no Bon Temps vampires. Sookie buys a lottery ticket and hits it big.


**SPOV**

"Sookie your Gran is on the phone." Sam called to me from behind the bar. It was completely out of character for her to be calling me during a shift so I was immediately put on high alert.

"Hi Gran what's wrong." I said rather desperately into the phone after snatching out of Sam's hands. Just then the second line lit up so Sam disappeared into the back to take the call on the phone in there.

"Oh hush child, nothing's wrong, I was just curious if you were still playing my numbers?"

"Your numbers, what are you talking about? Are you feeling ok?" I could hear the agitation in her voice, and I started racking my brain as to what the signs of a stroke were. I had seen a commercial on it a week ago but honestly didn't pay that much attention to it. Stupid Sookie, these are the things you should know. Gran is getting up there in years you should be prepared to help her in case of an emergency, especially since it would probably take a good while before an ambulance could make it out to our little farm house. A CPR class was definitely in order. I should probably update out first aid kits too. "Gran talk to me, what is wrong."

"Good lord little girl, nothing is wrong, like I said…I was just wondering if, as stubborn as you are, have you still been disregarding my advice about playing my numbers? Are you still wasting your hard earned money twice a week to buy those silly lottery tickets you seem to think I want you to buy."

"What? Gran you called me during my shift to bug me about playing your numbers for you. We've been through this enough, you know I like to buy those tickets for you Gran. It's my way of showing you I appreciate all the years you didn't play your number simply because you couldn't spare the $6 a week they cost since you took Jason and me in. I am buying you your dang lottery tickets and that is that. Now if that is all I am going to get back to my job, because until those numbers hit the jackpot I still need this job to pay for those tickets."

"Then honey child you can put that apron away, because you are a very wealthy woman." I could hear Gran softly weeping over the phone. And I momentarily froze in shock trying to absorb what she was saying to me.

"What? Is this a joke? Tell me this is a joke!" As shocked as I was I couldn't feel anything. It was neither good nor bad, just overwhelming. Somewhere in the back of my mind the number $270 million crossed my mind, but that was incomprehensible. That was make believe. That couldn't possibly be real. But maybe it wasn't. Like I said Gran was getting up there in years. Even though she was still sharp as a tack, it was more likely that she had gotten confused than it was that we had actually won. Or she never said that we had won the jackpot maybe it was just that we matched 5 number or something. Close but no cigar on a jackpot this size would still probably be more money than I thought I would see in my lifetime.

Just then Sam came out of the office. As shocked as I was my shields were completely useless, and even though I still couldn't get a great reading on Sam's brain the disjointed thoughts like "jackpot," and "half a million dollars because it was bought here," and "who could have won." Made it clear that he had just been on the phone with the lottery people and there had in fact been a winning ticket bought here at Merlotte's. His eyes flashed to me on the phone with my Gran and it's like he put two and two together.

"Was it you Cher, did you win?" He asked.

I nodded mutely as the realization finally sunk in that this was really happening. The next thing I knew I was being swung around in a circle as Sam had made his way to me at an alarming speed.

"Drinks on the house y'all," Sam shouted, "Sookie just won $270 million dollars."

"Gran won." I blurted out. "They were Gran's numbers, she won."

The yelps from the crowd told me they didn't care who won as long as they were getting free drinks.

Being a lottery winner and a telepath was not exactly a winning combination, pardon my pun.

In fact in sucked. Hard.

For one thing the good people of Bon Temps had no concept of annuities or taxes. They believed that we had $270 million dollars sacked away underneath our mattress or something. Me and Gran had decided to go the annuity route because neither one of us had too much of a mind for business so we didn't want to have to put in the effort that it would take to grow the money and risk blowing it on some failed scheme of some sort. Better to live in high cotton for the next 30 years while putting enough away to last us the rest of our natural born lives, Jason's too for that matter. The way the annuity was set up we got a check every year. The checks started out on the smaller side (relatively speaking) and grew by 5% each year. So our first check was a little over $4 million except half of that went straight to taxes, so we netted just over $2 million dollars for the year. Me and Gran decided right a way that half of all of our money was going to legitimate causes such as the church (tithing was not optional in the Stockhouse household), the DGD, the library, the schools, and such. That means that between me, Gran, and Jason we had $1 million dollars the first year. Plenty of money to spoil three people rotten that is for sure. But no less than 20 people (in varying degrees of seriousness) came up to me or Gran and asked us to give them $1 million dollars.

People that had thought I was a freak all of my life, that never had a kind thought for me or about me, coming up to me with their hands wide open like I owed them something because we had class together growing up. And then they had the nerve to call me a bitch in their minds or even sometimes out loud when I turned them down from their ridiculous requests.

Not that we didn't help people out that had legitimate needs, but most people's requests were not for anything practical. Anything from the aforementioned million dollars to money for a boob job (sorry but no Maudette Pickens).

Or even worse I heard no less than four guys thinking that if they took Spooky Sookie out on a date I would somehow be so grateful that they had condescended to take me out that I would become their sugar momma of sorts. I had to listen into them psyching themselves up to ask me out with thoughts like "You can do this man, she's not even ugly, you can just tune out the crazy and it will be well worth it when she gets you that sweet truck you've had your eye on."

Jason was almost as bad as since he was one of the people who didn't grasp the concept of taxes or annuities. He kept on coming to us with requests or hair brained schemes people would whisper in his ear, and then be confused when we were being stingy with the money. He wasn't negative about it, just confused. We finally wrote him a check for $300,000 told him that was his third of the money for the year, and he was free to do with it what he wanted but that was all he was going to get. That shut him up as he realized that while it was a lot of money, it wouldn't stretch nearly as far as he was expecting it to. After buying a new truck paying some backed taxes and doing some much needed maintenance on his house he settled into living how he was before; only now when he went out with his buddies he was the one who bought the beer. He was going to quit the road crew too, but realized he had no clue what he would do with his day if he did that.

Yep the old saying money doesn't buy happiness was true in spades for me as long as I stayed in Bon Temps. After a year and a half it finally sunk in that I was going to have to do the unimaginable: I was going to have to move away from Bon Temps.

 **EPOV**

Pam would not stop singing the theme to beverly hillbillies until I used my maker's command to make her shut up. Just to prove the point that you shouldn't annoy your maker I also commanded her to not watch TV for a month, but the bleating I had to endure because she was missing her fucking reality TV shows proved to be more annoying than the singing thus backfiring on me completely.

The inspiration to this vicious cycle of annoyance was the family about to take up residence next door to my main safe house. I had asked her to investigate who had bought the house to the right of me as a defensive measure, but instead I got the whole seemingly pointless story of a young girl with no college education from bum fuck playing the lottery and hitting it big. As long as she wasn't a threat I didn't care, but Pam went on and on about how the housing prices were going to drop when their winnebago was parked in the front lawn or some shit like that. Like I said I didn't care, but Pam couldn't have been more curious about the new neighbors, so on moving day (lord knows how she knew when moving day was, I think she may have glammoured their real-estate agent) she conveniently had an excuse to die for the day at my house and luckily rose in time to see an attractive young couple pull up to the house in an expensive looking truck with boxes batten down in the back. Pam was severely disappointed that the scene wasn't exactly like the start of the TV show whose theme song she had been commanded to stop singing.

It was about a week after my hillbillies moved in, (Pam had officially given up on anything interesting happening over there) when I got a knock on the front door. Through the peephole I could see my new neighbor with an elderly woman holding a pie. I would have turned away and left them to guess I wasn't at home but it seemed that the young lady had noticed my approach forcing me to open the door.

"May I help you?" I was fully prepared to glamour these women to never knock on my door again, but something about my new neighbor intrigued me. Maybe it was her DD tits. What can I say I maybe a Vampire but I am still a man first. Little miss lottery winner had hit the jackpot with her curves long before she picked the winning numbers.

"Hi Mr…." The elderly lady started obviously hoping I would supply my name.

"Northman."

"Oh yes, Hi Mr Northman. My granddaughter Sookie," My Gods her name was Sookie, how come Pam hadn't caught on to this fact, the teasing would have been relentless, "has just moved in next door. Her brother Jason is also staying here for a spell, and I might be here more times than not, we'll have to see, as old as I am it's sometimes hard to get my old bones moving. Inertia is a terrible thing when you get old, I'll tell you the truth about that Mr Northman. Well we, Sookie and I, decided we should come around and try and meet as many of the neighbors as possible. We both grew up in a small town not far from here where everyone knows everyone, and while I don't reckon it be the exact same around here, we should at least be able to name those that live the closest to us don't you think? So this here is Adele's famous shoofly pie, me being Adele of course, or Gran if you prefer." The old lady certainly was sweet, I almost hated ruining her good neighborly mood with the news I was a Vampire. The elderly always seemed to take the news the hardest.

"Sorry ma'am, I am afraid I am on an all liquid diet." I gave Sookie a sly smile flashing her a little fang to see her reaction. It didn't go unnoticed by me that the man I assumed to be the young lady's boyfriend was in fact her brother. I didn't usually fuck so close to home, but for the young beauty in front of me I could see myself making an exception.

Sookie's eyes got wide when she realized the implications of what I had just revealed, but her interest had her leaning in closer instead of backing up, which was always a good sign. When I turned my attention back to her grandmother I saw the same bright eyed curiosity that her granddaughter was displaying. My my my, that was certainly different.

 **SPOV**

I knew Mr Northman was different. His overall presence had a slight glow to it, but more importantly I couldn't read him at all. Instead of thoughts there had a kind of void that I could feel but not penetrate. So of course I had my suspicions that he was a vampire when he opened the door. He was also, without a doubt the most attractive man I had ever seen. That includes the movie stars that I had only ever seen on TV or at the movies. But figuring it was probably pretty rude to ask someone if they were a vampire when they first open the door for you, or to tell them how handsome they are, so instead I concentrated on keeping my mouth shut and letting Gran do the talking for us. It was really pretty cute to see Gran offer up her famous shoofly pie to a vampire. He seemed good natured about the whole thing, apologizing about his inability to consume the pie. After a few minutes of small talk I thought it best to get Gran back to the house before all of the many, many questions rolling around in her brain could burst forth from her mouth scaring the poor guy. I wonder if all vampire minds were equally silent, or if it was just Mr Northman. This offered up a whole new world of possibilities to me. I didn't know much about the vampire scene, but if there was a whole population of guys out there whose minds I couldn't read then abstract ideas such as dating and falling in love were maybe not all that abstract after all.

Maybe this move would prove to be what I needed all along.


End file.
